Vocational careers: Are you getting the best advice?

Going to university is often seen as the obvious choice for school leavers who want to continue learning but, given the right careers advice, many young people may discover vocational training is a better option

Cheshire-based Bentley Motors has found that taking the workplace into schools is one of the best ways to make young people aware of the opportunities available to them. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Europe

It's that time of year when young people all over the country are thinking about their next steps in education or training. So what is being done to make sure they know about all the options, including vocational routes?

Taking the workplace into schools is one of the best ways to make young people aware of the opportunities out there, as Cheshire-based Bentley Motors has found. Applications for apprenticeships at the company have risen from about 300 to 900 in the past year. Julia Gill, training programme personnel manager, thinks this is partly because Bentley sends its staff into local schools to run workshops and other activities, although she also believes rising university tuition fees might have something to do with it.

It's hands-on experience that really grabs young people's attention, Gill says. From October, Bentley will have a group of trainees linked to each secondary school in the area to do structured activities around Stem subjects [science, technology, engineering and maths] and entrepreneurship.

It's important that Bentley trainees – as opposed to more senior staff – deliver the activities, she adds. "Students can relate to that person and see that in a couple of years they could be like them. It's not about being less able or not capable of going to university, it's about saying there are different routes. If you want a degree you can still get there but do it in a different way."

Giving young people the opportunity to get hands-on experience of different vocational jobs and careers is vital, says florist Victoria Roberts who is due to represent the UK the international skills competition WorldSkills London 2011, due to be held in London in October. "I'd never really thought about floristry, until I got the opportunity to do work experience when I was at school. I had this idea that you just bunged flowers together, but I quickly realised that you can do anything you want with flowers – it's such a creative job. But if I hadn't had that opportunity to try it out for myself I could have ended up taking any old job in an office or something."

The government has made a clear commitment to raising the status of vocational education and training, investing heavily in apprenticeships. And the education secretary, Michael Gove, has agreed to recommendations from the recent Wolf review of vocational education, including changes to routes into teaching that would allow teachers of vocational subjects in further education colleges to teach in schools.

David Harbourne, director of policy and research at the education charity Edge, thinks this is great news. "There needs to be more of a mix of people from a variety of backgrounds in schools," he says, pointing out that if more vocational teachers work in schools, pupils are far more likely to consider learning a trade or taking up an apprenticeship.

Edge would also like to see better quality information for school teachers on vocational routes. A survey carried out by the charity in 2009 found that only 16% of secondary teachers rated their understanding of apprenticeships as "good". And as Harbourne points out, because post-16 funding is awarded on a "per pupil" basis, schools have a vested interest in keeping numbers up in their own sixth forms. This means some young people may not get to hear about vocational opportunities at all.

A new impartial, all-age careers service, due to be launched by the government in the autumn, could change that. But it's not all good news. It could take up to a year for the new service to be completely established. Meanwhile, funding for its predecessor Connexions, which provided advice and guidance for young people, has already started to be phased out, leaving a careers advice void for many young people.

What is also still unclear is how schools will provide impartial careers advice. Some may buy in advice and guidance from private providers. Others may simply give students access to online resources or telephone advice, which could leave a question mark over the quality of the service.

Issues could also arise over funding, says Aidan Relf, spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. "The government is saying it has to be impartial advice and yet we know there's no money available for it. We would like to see a genuinely independent service, which includes face-to-face provision."

It is a view echoed by the MP and so-called university access tsar, Simon Hughes. In his July report into access to higher education, he recommended the government "act urgently to guarantee face-to-face careers advice for all young people in schools".

Edge is concerned that quality of careers provision could vary from school to school according to the funding priorities of senior managers. "I think we will end up with a patchwork," says Harbourne, adding Edge would like to see a cluster system where groups of schools club together to buy in careers advice.

But he believes that WorldSkills London 2011, the international skills competition that is being held in the UK in October, could have a big role to play in changing perceptions. "WorldSkills offers a terrific window into the world of vocational careers. The fact that we've got the biggest event of its kind taking place in London will help enormously."